Takka
Setting and Info I've started designing Takka with an idea in mind: a language whose orthography and phonology are clearly influenced by Uralic languages, combined with a dictionary distinctly not Uralic, even borrowing slightly from Slavic languages. It's an experiment into extreme agglutination and polysynthesis, sometimes bordering on oligosynthesis. Phonology Consonants The voiced and voiceless palatal variants are in free variation or dialectical allophones. Vowels Double, consecutive vowels are treated as long and two different vowels are treated as diphthongs with the respective elements. Vowel Harmony Takka has a simple progressive vowel harmony system based on roundness. Each vowel has two variants, and there are four rules for harmony: #In the enviroment that there is either a rounded or an unrounded vowel as the last vowel in the word and a vowel of a different type is added, rule no. 2 is applied. #E and É, I and Í are interchangeable in harmony, while A and Á, U and Ú aren't. #E and É and I and Í can be substituted in harmony, while only Á and Ú can be harmonised (into A and U respectively). #Harmony is applied only to suffixes (not to infixes, compounds etc.) Phonotactics Takka has a simple syllable structure. The groups significant to syllable structure are 'C'onsonants and Vowels, C and V respectively. The structure is: Other than the limitations to the length of a single syllable, no other preventions are in effect, and every consonant cluster is allowed. Sometimes, a consonant can be alone, but only one can be found outside "true" syllable boundaries. Basic Grammar Terminology In the grammar section, I will use two methods of indicating types of letters in a suffix, namely the precise and underlying sound value of a letter. Each miniscule letter carries its alphabetical value as indicated in the phonology section, but capital letters indicate the general type of letter, along with the vowel type. Nominals In Takka, nouns are heavily agglutinated upon. Case, gender and number are in different suffixes and compounds are easily formed. All nominals except pronouns have an extremely regular morphology. Genders In Takka, any full nominal (noun, adjective, number) can have any of the 9 genders. The genders are listed as follows: Numbers Each nominal in Takka has one of three numbers. Full nominal suffixes are: Cases *The Possessive and Genitive forms (when used with possession) only indicate the type of possession, the Possessive indicates alienable while the Genitive indicates inalienable possession. Both cases can also be used to indicate origin. Possession Possession in any nominal is a suffix which indicates possession, possessed and possessor(s). It is one of the very few, rare features which are synthetic and compact. There are two suffix groups, one for possesseor of object and one for possession of object: Pronouns Pronouns in Takka are declined according to number, case, person and possession. There are stressed and unstressed forms of each pronoun. The third person pronoun gets gender suffixes per gender. Otherwise it is either divine or gender-neutral. Dictionary Example text Category:Languages